


Written into the Flesh

by Dancains



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Also I guess I've really been into the Little whump lately, Certified minx Thomas Jopson, Do people still use that term in 2019?, Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Secret Assignations, Very hand focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:55:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancains/pseuds/Dancains
Summary: He knew, with no doubt, his peers deemed him unimaginative.Lieutenant Edward Little? Reliable, they might say. Diligent. Prosaic. Above all else, certainly not given to flights of fancy. In truth, he was nearly always carried away by his imagination, even if he concealed it expertly. And, especially as of the last months, as they spent their first winter here in this desolate place, his fantasies seemed to carry him straight to one man.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I believe it was gallantrejoinder who originally sent me an idea/concept on tumblr regarding Little getting chilblains, and now I've finally done something with it :)) 
> 
> Fun fact: Wool grease is another name for lanolin, which is still used as a lotion today, and according to Wikipedia, some sailors use lanolin to create slippery surfaces on their propellers and stern gear to which barnacles cannot adhere. Idk I just thought that was interesting.

It gave him a small shock, like the dry static that sometimes clung to his clothes and bit at his touch, when Crozier cut through his sentence, interrupting him mid-report.

"Edward, I can't listen to another word while I see your hands blistering red like that, I'm sure this can wait until you've seen one of the surgeons."

Edward shifted his weight from one boot to the other, his spine a rigid marionette's string. He supposed he had been flexing and curling his fingers, unconsciously, trying to stifle the itching throb of pain that bloomed just under his skin.

"Sir," He ignored the instinct to neatly tuck his hands behind his back, the way he often did while speaking to a superior officer, "I have just been to medical bay. Dr. McDonald and Mr. Peddie were nearly about to begin surgery--one of the Marines, Sir, that poor fellow who had a tear in his boot--and I was told to come back in an hour or so, and they would give me some ointment. I've suffered chilblains before, and, frankly, I'm lucky to only have sore fingers."

Crozier conceded the point. "Alright, but do be careful out on deck in future, Lieutenant. These sunnier days can appear deceptively warm, even when it's far below freezing."

"Yes, Captain." In rare moments like these Edward sometimes felt the part of some disobedient child, even when he was trying his best not to be. 

A polite cough sounded from the far corner of the cabin. For the past few minutes, Jospon had been quietly bustling in and out, carrying what appeared to be clean, folded linens into the captain's bed chamber. Edward had imagined that he'd be paying little heed to their conversation, and it took him for surprise when Jopson garnered Crozier's attention.

"Sirs, If I might," his pale-eyed gaze flitted to Little for a fraction of a second, before returning to the captain," I believe I have a tin of wool grease in my possession--to save Lieutenant Little the trouble of waiting. It was what I was told to apply when I was similarly afflicted some months ago."

"Thank you, Jopson. That's quite good of you," said Crozier, the final words on the matter. A few moments later, when Edward had finished his meager report, he found himself following the steward down the length of the corridor. Even if his outward demeanor was steely, a liquid panic flooded his veins.

He had, in the privacy of his thoughts, imagined dozens of scenarios where he might be truly alone with the steward, if not more. Hidden so deeply in that place, behind lock and key, Edward had built a shrine to him, the secret object of his affections.

He knew, with no doubt, his peers deemed him unimaginative. Lieutenant Edward Little? Reliable, they might say. Diligent. Prosaic. Above all else, certainly not given to flights of fancy. In truth, he was nearly always carried away by his imagination, even if he concealed it expertly. And, especially as of the last months, as they spent their first winter here in this desolate place, his fantasies seemed to carry him straight to one man.

That he might be alone with him now--now that this fixation had gradually taken a stronger and stronger hold upon him--for even the briefest of exchanges, left him frightened that he may somehow reveal his desperate, depraved thoughts.

Those twenty or so steps, trailing behind Jopson, felt as if stretched into eternity, the man's jet black hair haloed in the glare of each light they passed beneath. If he were a poet, he imagined he might devote half a dozen lines to the sight.

He nearly ran into the man when Jopson stopped and turned on his heel. "I'll just fetch it for you, Sir."

"Of course. Thank you," Edward breathed, praying the steward has not taken notice of his clumsiness. 

As Jopson pushed aside the dingey taupe curtain--he was not afforded any more privacy than that--Edward realized that this may be his only proper viewing of the man's living quarters. He lingered awkwardly outside the doorway. After just a second, Jopson turned to face him, tin in hand. He was about to pass it to Edward, until he suddenly jerked back.

"I'm sorry, Sir. How stupid of me."

" _No._ Please, don't say that of yourself," Edward couldn't help but rush to Jospon's defense, even against the man's own rebuke. He hoped to God he hadn't revealed too much in this unthinking sentiment.

"I just meant," began Jopson, as some emotion--confusion, or perhaps, even some strange amusement--flashed so quickly over his handsome features Edward might have imagined it, "your hands are in pain. The last thing you'd want to handle is half-frozen metal."

His logic was sound, even if Edward wasn't sure where it was to lead. He inclined his head slightly.

"Perhaps, I could apply it for you."

His logic was sound, and devastatingly dangerous. The worst of it was, that even if Edward made some reason to refuse, arguing that it should be Mr. Gibson's duty to care for him instead, or some such nonsense, Jopson might take it as some personal slight, and begin to believe that Edward thought poorly of him, or of his work ethic. The idea was too unpleasant for the lieutenant to conceive. 

"Only if I am not keeping you from some other duty, of course," Edward finally answered, attempting to imbue it with an element of nonchalance.

"Oh, no, Sir. I have just finished the captain's laundering, and there is no other pressing task that awaits me at present."

"Ah. Thank you, then." Edward had no idea how this might be true, for it seemed that Jopson never had idle hands, but he wouldn't dare argue. He imagined he could feel a single bead of sweat, blooming under layers of broadcloth and making a slow trail down the length of his spine.

Jospon stepped backwards, no doubt to allow him into the cabin, and Edward instinctively complied. He took only a brief glance around him, knowing that if he let his eyes linger they would never be able to truly drink their fill. 

"You can sit, of course." There was just a hint of hesitation in his voice, as if the statement was too close to an order for Jopson's liking, and Edward wondered if a superior officer had ever stepped foot behind this partition before. 

Unlike his own cabin, there was no desk chair. The only place for him to sit was Jopson's bunk; it was the very place the steward occupied each night, all the while Edward's deviant thoughts unfailingly turned to-- _no,_ he couldn't even begin upon that path now, for it was a road with no return. 

Jopson, occupied with twisting the lid from the tin, gave no discernible reaction as Edward finally, resolutely sat. He placed the opened tin beside him on the bunk, where the linens were, of course, turned up neatly, and, taking Edward by the wrist, he began to gently peel off his fingerless, woolen gloves.

Edward exhaled. He was glad for the dull pain, if only because it would temper the unbearable sweetness of Jopson touching his hands with such a gentleness that he had rarely seen. Carefully removing each glove, so that they moved with only the slightest necessary friction against Edward's reddened skin, Jospon set them aside on his shelf. Then he took up the tin of grease again.

"There's no need for you to stand on occasion, Jospon. I'm sure you're on your feet more hours of the day than I am." As soon as the words left his mouth, like opportunistic song birds taking flight, he wished he could catch them and force them back into their gilded cage. His thoughts had been preoccupied with the steward's well-being, as they often were, but he hadn't meant to give voice to them.

"Oh. Thank you." From the little rush of breath that came with the response, Jopson sounded genuinely pleased. 

Jopson's body didn't touch his as he sat beside him, though the compact bunk only left scant room between the parallel lines of their thighs. Edward endeavored to keep his eyes on the floor, tracing the curling knots in the planks there, but he found himself too distracted by the movement to his right. Jopson had scraped a reasonable amount of the wool grease from the tin with two fingers, and was working it between the warmth of his hands.

The slight, inoffensive smell of it made Edward think hazily of wide green pastures dotted with cloud-like sheep, of riding his favorite gelding through a great big flock of them, the animals parting like the Red Sea.

He was brought out of the memory by Jospon's touch. Edward couldn't keep his eyes from where both of Jospon's hands held one of his own, methodically spreading the parchment colored grease over each of his digits with the lightest of pressure, and bringing a blessed coolness to blistering flesh. 

Turning over Edward's hand, so it was palm-up, he gently worked the excess into the flat of the hand, though the skin was not visibly affected by the chilblains there.

If only the soothing balm would placate the flustered heat buzzing inside him. Edward silently thanked God that Jopson was not the subordinate officers' steward. He was sure he wouldn't be able to bear such minute, tender attentions on a daily basis. 

Venturing a glance upward at Jospon's face, he found the man in deep concentration, the tip of his tongue trapped endearingly between the blunt white lines of his teeth. This was probably the closest they had ever been in proximity, for more than a moment, at least, and while Jopson's eyes were cast upon his work Edward could more properly study their perplexing gray-green color. 

He thought he had seen it before, in the sunlight glinting off of a cresting ocean wave. How he ached, to see that water breaking though the plate-glass ice that now kept _Terror_ shackled in its place. Perhaps some force akin to that solid ice-sea kept him frozen in place, afraid that the slightest movement might shatter this moment between them.

"My mother used to-" Jospon began to murmur softly, until he looked up, starting ever so slightly at Edward's intent gaze.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't want to speak out of turn."

"No. Please. You've left me...curious."

Jopson's mouth quirked into a faint smile, something wry and almost sad in it. "I was just going to say that, a long while ago, my mother would read fortunes for the children who lived near us, in the lines of their palms. She had quite a reputation for her insights. I suppose I was just reminded..." He paused. "Saying it aloud, now, it must sound rather classless. Fanciful, at the least."

"Well if you think that, I do not know what you would think of my sister and her friends," said Edward, trying his best to affect a jovial tone. "On her birthday, a few years past, one of them performed a similar party trick for all the young ladies present. I was barred from this practice--I think because she was very shy, and thought it an impropriety to hold a gentleman's hand, even with perfectly reasonable pretense. Such a thing was certainly not my aim, though. I really did just want to hear my supposed fortune."

Jopson laughed, earnestly and sweetly. It was something that should have rightfully been bottled and sold by apothecaries as a cure-all, but as for now, Edward had it all to himself. He couldn't help but grin back in sympathetic mirth; the stretch of it on his face feeling almost unfamiliar, but good all the same.

"Well, I do think I might remember some of how my mother went about it."

Without waiting for a response Jopson took up his hand again, holding it delicately by the back of his palm, so the ice-burned finger tips wound be spared further irritation. With his other hand he traced a single finger across the length of a curving indentation that ran around the mound at the base of Edward's thumb. Edward felt a tremor run through him, at the slow, deliberate motion.

"This one, here," said Jopson, "is your life-line. It's said to be a determination of the length of your life, and your general state of health. You can see it's quite long, and deep. Some people's peter off down here, but yours almost touches your wrist. By all accounts you should enjoy a prolonged life, and a strong constitution."

Edward nodded. He wasn't half as taken with the creases in his own hand as the delicate indentation at the tip of Jopson's nose, something one could only see from straight on. Keeping his manner even, he replied "Well, I am not often ill. You have the making of a medium, yet, Mr. Jopson."

Jopson smiled. He indicated another line, closer to the center, just barely brushing it this time. Oh, how the contact left Edward wanting.

"This one is the head-line. Just what it sounds like. You can see, on your hand, it's very rigid, straight. There's no breaks in it--for some it splits in the middle. It means that you seriously consider things before coming to a decision, that you aren't given to being brash. Nor are you prone to fancy and day-dreams. Though I suppose, a person wouldn't have to look at your hand to know that, Sir."

He searched Jopson's face for some hint of knowing irony, but there seemed to be none--no hint that the man had somehow glimpsed the flame that burned at Edward's core.

"You don't have to call me 'Sir.' Not right now, I mean." Surely, there was no danger in a friendly gesture. Perhaps, if given further opportunity, Jopson could see him not just as a superior, but as a friend. Edward would be grateful for that alone.

Jopson's lips parted. "Yes, alright. If you say so." Something warm seemed to glimmer behind his eyes, before he continued in his demonstration.

"This third line-- _here_ \--is your love-line." Jopson stroked it ever so tenderly with the pad of his thumb.

" _Oh._ " The steward must have felt the warm puff of breath the word produced heating his cheek. Desperately, Edward wondered if he might prolong this exchange, if even by a few seconds. "I imagine that when your mother did this, for little girls, she would tell all of them that they would marry a very wealthy man one day. Like something out of fairy tale."

For a moment, it seemed that Jopson was very far away. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, and his gaze held Edward's steadily. "No. I don't think she wanted to get their hopes up too high, being as where we were from. She would say...not a wealthy man, but not a poor one. A good man. Hardworking. One who would make you very happy, if you let him."

Their legs were nearly touching now, warm flesh seeking out warm flesh in the perpetual cold. Nothing but silence tumbled from Edward's mouth.

"Do you even know the weight of it?" Jopson whispered suddenly, "your gaze? The way I feel it upon me all of the time. At first I thought, I had displeased you in some way. Maybe, possibly, it was that disdain that many in the service hold for stewards, us wretched, common things flitting to and fro behind officers' country. Or a jealously for my proximity to the captain, his fondness of me. But whenever I would look back...you would look away. _You,_ who are staunch and unyielding in all things, or so it seemed. But then I understood."

Edward couldn't breathe. "I'm so sorry," he somehow managed to croak, "if I have caused you any discomfort-" Jopson gestured, open-handed, and he stopped.

"But, when you were looking away, I was looking at you. And I decided I quite liked what I saw." His gaze traveled pointedly down Edward's form, then back to his mouth.

Edward imagined this was a scene he would soon wake from, too caught up in his fantasies again. Here was Thomas Jopson, his words as sharp as polished cutlery, cutting into the fleshy, tender bits of Edward's heart. It must have been a trick, a ruse, a fantasy mirage in an airless desert.

If it truly was a dream, what harm would there be in steering it to the conclusion he most desired?

"Then perhaps, I could persuade you...to demonstrate this well-favored opinion of me."

He had never seen such a hunger on Jopson's face before.

They both moved at the same time, Edward's untreated hand instinctively moving to cup Jopson's jaw. His fingers burned as they grazed the man's face, the slight stubble there pricking painfully like thorns on the most beautiful rose. The tips looked starkly bruise-violet against Jopson's pale skin. Their noses bumped slightly, until one or both of them tilted, their mouths meeting just right. There was no doubt this was _real_ , from the heat and the taste of it, from the scrape of Jopson's teeth against his bottom lip as they parted slightly. Jopson's finger curled around his wrist, gently pulling it away. Edward opened his eyes. He hadn't realized he had closed them.

"I don't want to hurt your hand."

It took everything Edward had to quell a hysterical laugh from bubbling up his throat. "I'd bear far, far worse pains, _for this_."

Jopson came in close again, whispering at the side of his mouth. "I'm glad it was you."

"You're glad it was me who got chilblains?"

" _No._ I mean, well- no. What I meant was, I was glad it was you. Looking at me. I don't want you to think I'm not discerning. I wouldn't take an interest in just any man." Eyes downcast, he added, with an air of shyness, "Truthfully, I have always thought you a handsome man, and an admirable officer. But I knew better than to let my mind stray any further than these...detached sort of observations. Until..."

Edward flexed his fingers, his unrestrained hand hovering between them, still blistering and itching, even with the salve. The other one felt safe, somehow, in Jopson's grasp. Still, God, he wanted to _touch_. The floodgates of opportunity had miraculously opened, and any words he might conjure or construct seemed powerless to express his affections properly.

Single-mindedly, Edward pressed another kiss to Jopson's lips, then to the clever corner of his mouth, and the jut of his chin, the tip of his nose and the edge of his jaw, traveling to the delicate shell of his ear. Jopson gasped, breath hitching forcefully. His fingers clenched tighter around Edward's wrist, and in the front of his coat, at the same time an urgent, pleading heat began to coil between Edward's legs.

Jopson's eyes darted to the curtained door as he let out another involuntary, ragged breath, evidently conscious of the noise they might be making. It was an hour of the day where few men would likely passing through the corridor, though Edward knew Jopson was right to be cautious. He was amazed at his own lack of worry, too entranced by this singular event.

"Someone might be missing one of us by now. Let me put grease on your other hand," Jopson whispered, in resignation.

Edward withdrew, offering his hand once again. "When can we..? Some other opportunity must arise. Or we shall have to create one."

Jopson gently worked Edward's fingers with his own, pain and comfort bleeding into one confusing, intoxicating sensation.

"When you're quite healed."

Edward did his best not to growl. "That might be a fortnight. Longer."

"We are both patient men. Pacing around each other as long as we have." There was a shared sense of humor in it, and Edward was struck once again by how easily this rapport bloomed between them.

"Yes. And fantasizing all the while...things that might shock you."

Jopson's lips gave a devilish quirk. "Would they?" His eyes might have been the color of the sea, but they seared like embers. "I am concerned for your well-being, you know. But I'm not entirely selfless in wanting your hands in good condition."

Edward was rendered speechless. If only he could cast a net into the man's mind and skim its contents--he suspected he was now only seeing the true surface.

Jopson stood, adjusting his hair, the perfect image of decency and propriety. He took Edward's gloves from his shelf and tucked them into the lieutenant's waistcoat pocket. He did the same with the tin of wool grease.

As Edward reluctantly made to leave, Jopson whispered one last sentiment into his ear. "Perhaps, in time, we may find a more pleasurable use for that, as well."


	2. Chapter 2

His older sister Catherine, willowy and bespectacled and nearly always right (whether or not Edward chose to admit it), had once caught him trying to pilfer an egg custard tart from the kitchen, in a rare moment their aging cook had stepped out of the veritable fortress. They had surely been prepared for an after-dinner treat, glistening lemon-gold on top and framed by delicate, ridged crusts, with the jammy sort of center Edward loved to sink his teeth into.

She had told him they would taste all the more sweet if he exercised the virtues of restraint and self-discipline, by waiting for them properly. Then, with a half-hearted smack to his arm, Catherine sent him outside to play.

Lazing in the stiff grass under his favorite tree--for it was far too warm for any activity, with the sole exception of solemn contemplation--he decided what she had said made no sense at all. Would they not taste just the same now, as they would later? 

That stretch of hazy Summer afternoon, until he was called back inside for their evening meal, had seemed an entire life-time to his eleven year old self. Over two decades later, in the aftermath of his encounter with Thomas Jopson, he realized he had never truly known anticipation in the full sense of the word.

That deep _want_ settled in him, stronger than before, whittled into something even sharper with every fleeting instant he and Jopson crossed paths. They passed in the corridor, occasionally, shoulders brushing, with the steward angling a look towards him, inscrutable and impenetrable to anyone else who might witness it.The air around them seemed to have a charge, not unlike the invisible lines of magnetic fields that they were meant to be studying here. Perhaps it was some unique organic principle, as natural as magnetism but heretofore unknown, that pulled them to one another. In a life of order and sense, of usually predictable pattern, these small instances shook Edward to his core.

Jopson's elbow brushed his arm, one evening, as he poured a drink, a slight no other soul would notice, but Edward found he could not string together a coherent sentiment for the rest of the meal. Undressing before bed, he was surprised it hadn't left some mark upon his skin, pink and tender and damning.

What _truly_ drove him to the brink of madness, was knowing how soap-soft and supple Jopson's touch was, even if he has only felt it across his own calloused palms and encircling the diameter of his wrist. 

He had once read about Cleopatra, the great woman-pharaoh of ancient Egypt, bathing in goat's milk at each day's dawn to make herself pliant and lovely. Seemingly diligent, he supervised a group of men holystoning the deck, all the while he lost himself to the fantasy of Jopson doing the very same as that long-dead ruler--lathering whiteness into his skin, the steaming bath infused with honey and rose petals and heads of dried lavender, until the air was made thick with perfume. Edward would crawl to him if he so desired, wash him like a servant, taking a rag under the milk-bath's surface and scrubbing him with infinite care.

To imagine that the steward might use those same supple hands to pleasure himself, when the ship was quiet and dark and still and his duties completed, to imagine Jopson might think of _him_ then, it was an invigorating sort of agony. _I'm not entirely selfless in wanting your hands in good condition_ \--had Edward imagined the very words? With his own hands still in their damaged state, that first night he had to restrain himself from rutting and thrusting against the mattress like a dog in heat, lest he make a mess that he most ardently did not want Mr. Gibson to have to launder.

Perhaps what had transpired between Edward and the captain's steward should not have come as so much of a shock to him, considering his past, though limited, experiences of intimacy with men. The catalyst to such things had occurred when he was eighteen or nineteen, at a ball held by their nearest neighbors. Stiff and uncomfortable in too-snug hand-me-down clothes, dancing had held no interest to him. Trailing behind Catherine and Emily as they made their rounds of expected conversation, a boy about his age, a young man really, kept catching his eye.

With glowing gray eyes under foppish blond curls, there was a curious potency to his gaze that Edward couldn't help but to return nervously.

When he stepped out into the foyer, in search of a way out for some much needed night air, the man was there at the mouth of a hallway. Edward made no protest as he was led to some dark room or pantry, hidden in the depths of the manor. In a short measure of time, they both had their hands down each other's trousers. He had barely understood it, even as it was happening, only that it excited him like nothing else.

With a sour sort of irony, he later realized why, in his youth, he had been so fixated upon one of their footmen, a dark and handsome man whose release following a hunting injury had caused Edward inexplicable distress for months.

There were instances after the ball, far and few between, and absolutely never at sea. He threw himself into his duties, and was wholly satisfied in them. He thought it best not to dwell on the morality of it, to leave this ethical conundrum to better and brighter minds. As far as he was concerned, the fleeting things he had done in private had no bearing nor ill effect on anyone else but the parties involved. He had never been a man of strong religious faith, and afforded but little introspection to the state of his soul.

Never had he found himself wanting of a wife--or any sort of woman, for that matter. 

His long-simmering anticipation finally came to a head one afternoon, on a day so innocuous that it barely appeared a separate entity from the one that had come before it. The only singular characteristic that could be attributed to it was the steady approach of Spring, and early discussion of the organization of lead parties.

Edward had made his way down into the storerooms to take account of their tents, portable cook stoves, and other supplies for such terrestrial excursions, a task he could have easily delegated to someone below him, and was probably expected to do so. You could only guarantee something could be done right if you did it yourself, he might have explained if so pressed. In truth, he wished for a moment of quiet in the less populated part of the vessel, some measure of time to gather his oft frenzied thoughts in solitude.

Passing the half-open door of the captain's personal storeroom, he could just barely hear a familiar voice, one he heard as often in his dreams as he did in waking life. Jopson was murmuring under his breath, counting the bottles in a crate and making some sort of arithmetical equation aloud. It filled Edward with endearment, this peek into a private, solitary moment of Jopson's day. The supplies could certainly wait a moment, he decided.

He sidled into the small room and shut the door as quietly as he could, not unlike how the steward himself crept silently about the ship, and put his hand to Jopson's shoulder.

The man froze, turning himself around in an instant. His hands had gone up to the height of his chest, in natural response, and stayed hovering there even as his surprise softened into something quite different. 

Without thinking, Edward raised his own hands and laced their fingers together. _"All better,"_ is what he meant to say by it, but he couldn't form the words upon his lips, and it seemed there was no need. A shock of understanding flashed between them, one ship signaling another with its colorful flags, in a language known only to them.

Jopson's fingers tightened in his own, anchoring him as he leaned in to peck at Edward's lips--a chaste sort of gesture--that is, until he was soon suckling on Edward's tongue. 

Edward let go to grasp at his shoulder, just as Jopson's fingers threaded themselves in the back of his curling hair. Acting upon a long-held desire, he ventured lower, mouthing at the exposed parts of Jopson's throat. "Thomas..." he couldn't help but murmur reverently against the man's bobbing Adam's apple.

The steward inhaled sharply through his nose. Had Edward acted too intimately? Jopson's Christian name had been elusively bubbling at the forefront of his fantasies, as he wondered how it would taste upon on his tongue when finally invoked aloud.

He drew back. "Is it alright for me...?" It was probably absurd for him to be asking a man of such a rank permission for anything, but adoration made one absurd.

The steward smiled and ducked his head, with the sort of shy modestly that would look feigned on anyone else. "You wouldn't believe how it pleases me to hear that."

Edward was amazed that he had the power to produce such an effect. Squeezing his shoulder, he kissed Thomas again, and another time for good measure. He grew lightheaded with each searing point of contact, dazed at his own delight. "You could call me Edward," he whispered hopefully, "or anything you like, really. When we're alone."

Eyes alight, Thomas glanced around Edward to the door. "Could you spare a few moments---I know it's impossible to ask--as many as ten?"

"As far as anyone knows, I will be occupied down here in the hold for some time."

" _Oh,_ I could make certain of it."

Before Edward could even contemplate all the possible implications in such a comment, Thomas sprang into action like an untethered coil. "Would you help me move these?"

Edward was assisting him before he even understood their action's purpose.

"The door only locks from the outside," Thomas whispered. Together they stacked three crates in front of it, the weight of them bolstering the door closed. Even if it was worked open, their man-made obstruction would no doubt temporarily obscure the doorway's view. 

Now buzzing with motion and adrenaline, the conspiratorial look he exchanged with Thomas was like a spark of white lightning through him, whittling a piercing line of fire though a darkly clouded sky.

A foreign sort of laugh, erupting on the tip of his tongue, was swallowed into a gasp as Thomas took him firmly and pinned him to the bulkhead. To his surprise, the steward nuzzled him--for there was no other word for it--like a cat, his smooth cheeks chafing sweetly against Edward's furred face, as if desperate for the strange but exceedingly pleasant contact.

Thomas' hair was oiled with some fragrant, floral tonic, or perhaps the man merely emanated the scent of a memory, of some beautiful English meadow come Spring. Regardless, it was intoxicating.

His eyes fluttering closed, Edward's open hands were left to explore everything they could, nearly of their own accord, smoothing down the precious length of Thomas' spine to small of his back, then venturing even further below to that slight, sumptuous swell of his buttocks.

Thomas jerked at the touch--though, thankfully, not away from him, but even impossibly closer. Their bodies better aligned, he felt that same aching promise in Thomas' trousers as now hung painful and blood-filled between his own legs. Their mouths clumsily met again, as Thomas rocked into the heated friction of their coupling, spurned onward by Edward's finger's digging even more possessively into his clothed flesh.

"If only we had that grease," Thomas all but purred into his reddened ear, "I'd slick the inners of my thighs, let you thrust your manhood betwixt them. Squeeze my legs around you until you spill." When Edward opened his eyes, Thomas' own heavy-lidded set seemed as pools of ink, the pupils blown wide and round. Even in his daydreams, Edward had not dared to imagine the man with such an eager appetite.

 _"Jesus Christ."_ It was a wonder there was any blood left to flow to Edward's brain, let alone to operate its typical and necessary functions. Still, he attempted to mentally steady himself, at least enough to say something he knew to be of great importance.

"Wait, promise me something," he pleaded, after another unconscious glance towards the door, "before I'm unable to stop myself."

"What's that?"

"If we were ever to be found out-- _God forbid_ \--you need to tell them I forced you. That I--that I pulled rank. Took advantage of you."

Tom smiled. There was something almost melancholy in the gesture. "No."

"What?" Edward balked.

In response, Thomas sank to his knees, his hands now flat upon the lieutenant's thighs. The very sight was a tableau of obscenity unrivaled by anything Edward had ever witnessed before.

"Do you know how often I imagined, dreamed that you would? Take advantage?"

All coherent thought fled from Edward's mind as Thomas undid the placket of his trousers and began to mouth at the straining bulge in his linen drawers, rubbing his cheek against the hard, clothed line of Edward's prick. That a simple man such as him would incur such lustful attentions from as angelic of a creature was inconceivable. 

"...But you're not like that," Thomas continued in a low, heady murmur against the heat of his groin, barely intelligible to Edward over the roaring of blood in his ears. "You're a _good man_. And I know I should be glad. Oh--but I prayed for such horrible, horrible things, all the same."

Irrationally, Edward throbbed with burning embarrassment at just how achingly stiff he was. Covering his mouth with his hand, he tried to stop himself from clumsily thrusting into Thomas' face like some inexperienced youth.

With a questioning look from below the line of his lashes, Thomas's hands moved to disrobe him completely. Edward nodded feverishly, his breath already coming too fast through his nose, enough to make one lightheaded. A heady warmth had come over him, so vigorous in its force that he barely felt the cold of the room against his exposed manhood.

In any case, he wouldn't have felt a chill for long. Thomas took Edward's base in hand, whilst his eyes drank their fill with a keen appreciation. He readily licked his lips. With another oh-so-innocent glance up at Edward, the flat of Thomas' soft pink tongue lathed at its tip, bringing with it warmth and wetness and a bolt of something fierce and nameless that seemed to travel up Edward's spine.

Thomas soon set to work, not as if it was at the behest of some command or duty, but as if it was some great privilege he had long been denied and had no guarantee of enjoying ever again. His plump, glistening lips gently pushed back Edward's foreskin, working farther up the thickness of Edward's shaft until they met his own curled fingers.

Edward's whole body quivered as that tight heat consumed him, bobbing forward and back with an almost lazy, indulgent rhythm, something akin to a ship pitching and tossing upon the waves. He was certain that a mortifying amount of pre-seminal fluid must have been dribbling from his slit, and when Thomas pulled back far enough, something clear trickled obscenely down his chin.

It was not merely the sensation, or the sight, that had such a powerful effect upon Edward's each and every nerve, but also the sound. Not only those slick noises as Thomas worked his lips and tongue, which seemed to echo about in the quiet of the small compartment and which would soon echo in Edward's future memory, but the content, little hums and moans which made their escape from the suction of Thomas' mouth. 

Soon, some deeper groan came from somewhere in the steward's throat, as he took Edward even deeper than before, though the thick thatch of hair at his groin was still a few inches from Thomas' reach.

Edward tightened his thighs, desperately holding himself from thrusting even further into Thomas' welcome ministrations, that submerged, deep-set instinct to rut and fuck and take his fill, gnawing cruelly at his psyche. Paradoxically, he ached to touch Thomas gently, to somehow communicate the true depth of his affections. 

The man's glossy hair, all a mess, had fallen over his brow, and draped itself over one of his closed eyes. Gingerly, Edward took his hand away from the crevice in the bulkhead he'd been clinging to, and swept away the errant locks, petting the soft hair until it was back in place, with so light a touch as to not force Thomas' movements.

The man looked up at Edward with a green-eyed tenderness he most assuredly didn't deserve, as if his actions were not driven merely by lust but something closer to the devotion of love, as if, perhaps, in time, such a thing could truly be fostered between them. It was that very look which caused Edward to spend, gasping and shaking and biting the meat of his palm.

He found he was eminently grateful his back was already pressed to the wall, as he wasn't sure that he would have remained upright otherwise. 

Edward Little had experienced this joyous revelation--no matter anything that had transpired in the preceding parts of his life, or whatever may come of him in the future. Thomas Jopson, that handsome, clever captain's steward, had taken Edward up in his mouth and Edward had felt newfound glory.

He sunk down against the wall, until he was crouched low, and experienced another revelation as he and Thomas kissed each other and Edward could taste his own bitter in the other man's mouth. With quivering hands, he went to unbutton Thomas' trousers, wanting nothing more than to return the unearthly pleasure he had just received. 

As he leaned back on his haunches (and quickly tucked himself back into his breeches), the sight he was met with was strikingly odd, in its own salacious way; Thomas still done-up perfectly and orderly in his broadcloth and brass buttons, but with the eager, reddened surge of his cock jutting from his trousers. The only other thing askew was his collar, and the slightly loosened drape of his neck-cloth, an infraction that would go unnoticed on any other, less fastidious, petty officer.

Licking his palm, he captured Thomas' manhood in his grip. Average and unassuming in its length and girth, Edward imagined that if Thomas were fully unclothed, it would have been beautifully proportioned to the rest of the man's physique.

Both kneeling, they held each other--clung, really--as Edward pumped and stroked him. Thomas dug his fingers in Edward's hair, not quite kissing but breathing heavily into his mouth.

The lieutenant wished more than anything, at that moment, that they could have the proper time and privacy for him to truly pleasure Thomas, at a prolonged, luxuriating pace. Lord knew the man was tight-wound and overworked, even if he disguised it expertly.   


Even though Edward respected their captain, he knew being at Crozier's oft-drunken beck and call must not have been easy. His own duties as the man's second were continually weighing upon him. If they could only distract each other from their respective troubles for a short while, give each other some reprieve, he wouldn't take this opportunity lightly.

Somehow Thomas had managed to dig into his own waistcoat pocket and retrieve a handkerchief, no doubt to avoid an unseemly, damning stain. Despite this precaution, Edward enacted a different course of action entirely.

Barely slowing his hand, he moved to bend forward and crouch on one elbow, to take Thomas in his mouth. It was an act he had been hesitant about in his limited past experiences, but now it proved to be an uncontrollable urge. He had little time to properly take in the smell and taste and texture of it; soon after he had carefully managed his mouth around the swollen glans, the back of his throat was flooded with a slick heat. Embarrassingly, he pulled back in a instinctive reaction, some of the seed dripping from his lips in the process.

Swiping the back of his hand against his mouth and chin, he was able to witness a shift in Thomas' countenance which occurred in rapid speed. For that brief moment he was the very image of exquisite ecstasy, mouth hung open and eyes turned towards heaven, until they took in the mess upon Edward's face, and those same eyes went wide like those of a deer caught in a hunter's aim.

He wouldn't be able to look at the steward again without remembering this, every facet of his flushed, gasping face. From somewhere deep and depraved inside him, he hoped Thomas would remember him in the same fashion, even in the Great Cabin or the Wardroom, or any place they would be neatly compartmentalized back into their roles of officer and servant.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't think--" stumbled in a hurried whisper from Thomas' lips. 

Despite himself, Edward grinned. No doubt he looked utterly mad. Touching his face, he could feel a pearly glob of Thomas' spend caught in his whiskers.

He put on a veneer of his usual stoicism, confident that Thomas was more than able to see what truly glowed underneath. "I would not want to make an undue request upon your time, Mister Jopson, as you are not my steward. But, I would be quite, quite grateful, if you could help to remedy my appearance. I've become somewhat...disheveled, it seems."

Thomas blinked, as if finally returning to the mortal plane. "Of course, Sir." He wet his handkerchief with his tongue, lifting it to the corner of Edward's mouth. Strangely, comfortingly, it made Edward feel like a child.

"But, as for being grateful, Lieutenant," Thomas continued, "you could not be as grateful as I."


End file.
